Love me in December as you do in May
by ViolaRoadkill
Summary: Crack!fic. A pairing pulled out of a hat.
1. Chapter 1

Rose Tyler liked older men.

In Jericho St.'s Grade Three class, all the girls played Kiss Tag, and the boys retreated to the muddiest corner of the field, abandoning week-long football tournaments. But when the fifth-grade boys saw Rose coming, they scrambled to the library with extra-credit science projects.

When she was twelve, Rose had a crush on Shareen's older brother Mike, and she took up woodwork to impress him. (When he uttered the fateful "Girls can't be carpenters," she threw a hammer at him. He needed eleven stitches.)

At fourteen, Rose followed Mickey Smith around after school, and hid in the back of his car when he took his girlfriends on dates. It became a point of pride to her that she knew exactly how Mickey Smith liked to be kissed.

Sixteen years old, and she dropped out of school to live with Jimmy Stone, whose band sang songs that were censored on the community radio station. What did a girl need with A-levels, when she was dating a bad-boy twenty-year-old? Three months later she learned the answer: eight hundred pounds and a decent job. She began working at Hendrik's to pay off the outstanding rent.

It surprised her when Mickey Smith sat next to her at the pub and asked her out over a beer. It seemed he had forgotten about her fourteen-year-old exploits. She didn't remind him.

She did, however, remember how he liked to be kissed.

When a gorgeous alien in a blue box asked her twice to travel the stars with him, she grabbed the chance with both hands, determined to never let go. But he slipped from her fingers, leaving her twice stranded on a cold beach in Norway.


	2. Chapter 2

The zeppelin flight back to England was quiet. The other Doctor dropped off to sleep immediately. She couldn't quite call him "Doctor" yet. Soon, hopefully.

Maybe it was for the best. After all, what would the real Doctor, with nine centuries of experience and a time machine that was bigger on the inside, want with her? She'd been way out of her league.

Rose smiled and wiped the drool off his face. They'd work it out together.

A small stripy missile launched itself out of the door and grabbed Rose around the waist. "Wose! You didn't go away!" He buried his face in her leg. "I was sad, Wose," he accused her.

Rose bent down and kissed the top of his head. Three-year-old Tony Tyler was one of the few things that had made life in this universe bearable, when her goal seemed unreachable and her chest ached with misery. "I'm staying, Tony," she said. "Couldn't leave you behind, could I? And see who I brought!"

Tony peeked around her, his gaze travelling up from the red sneakers to the messy brown hair. "Doktah!" he exclaimed in delight. "Wose, it's your Doktah! You're not sad now!"

Rose looked up to meet his eyes. If her little brother could do it, then so could she. "D-Doctor," she said, stumbling slightly over the word. "Doctor," more firmly, "this is Tony. My brother."

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"You're going to need new clothes, you know."

"Hmm?"

"Some new clothes. You can't keep wearing the same suit. No Tardis to keep it clean for you."

The Doctor picked idly at a thread on the sofa. "Tardis...yeah. Wait, what?"

"New. Clothes. Need to buy." She sighed in frustration. This regeneration had always had a short attention span, but right now he was worse than Tony. "You'll smell."

"Hey! Time Lords don't _smell_, Rose!"

"You can use my deodorant if you like. It's lavender scented. I think it's suit you." She leaned over and ran her fingers through his hair. It had been so long since she'd been able to do that.

"I'm not using any _girly_ stuff," the Doctor stated emphatically. He glared at her. "Next thing I know, you'll be putting lipstick on me again."

"That was once!"

"Lipstick, Rose. _Lipstick_."

"Jack dared me!" Jack. She'd never see him again, but at least he was still alive. The Doctor owed her an explanation for that one. Busy rebuilding the earth, my foot! she thought resentfully. At least he'd apologized, or so it seemed from their behaviour earlier. She wondered how long it had taken Jack to catch up with him.

"How long has it been for you?" she asked nervously.

"How long since...what?"

"Since we were separated."

"Nine minutes, forty-three point two four seconds." She stared. "To the nearest millisecond."

"What — Doctor, that doesn't even make sense." Ten minutes? Donna had travelled with him for months.

The Doctor's attention had wandered off again. He was entranced by Tony's aquarium mobile, watching the fish change colour in the breeze. "Don't be silly. Ten minutes?"

"I'm not being silly." He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. "Five minutes two point eleven seconds later, Jack asked me for the codes, and I told him I'd sent you home. That took fifty five point one seconds. Then another three minutes, forty-seven seconds after that, the Tardis doors opened and there you were." He smiled. "All glowing like an angel," he said in a sing-song voice.

"I meant, since Bad Wolf Bay. Not the Gamestation."

"Nearly five hours, but we weren't separated, Rose." He wriggled and stretched out his legs, drumming his feet on the floor. "Well, except when you went to the toilet —"

"The first time. After Canary Wharf?"

He looked blank.

Rose bit her lip worriedly. Was memory loss a symptom of not-regenerating? She remembered his previous regeneration, when he'd gone mad and crashed the Tardis. Another time, he'd nearly strangled his companion.

She took a deep breath, and spoke in a calm, level voice. "Doctor, what's the last thing you remember before you were in the Tardis with Donna, in the Crucible?"

"Sword fight!" he cried in delight, bouncing enthusiastically. "Slash slash — slice!" He chopped at his right wrist. "_Off_ with his hand!"

"You — you don't remember anything after that?"

He reached over and took her hand. "That's when I was created, Rose. I couldn't have all of his memories, could I? I wasn't a part of him after that."

Her stomach had a nasty sinking feeling. Was he not her Doctor after all? He remembered only half of the time they'd spent together. And while she could see the man she'd first fallen in love with in her second Doctor, there was no trace of him in this man's eyes.

Not for the first time since Bad Wolf Bay, she wondered if her was just trying to get rid of her.

"...and this is my eleventh body. Sort of. My tenth-and-a-half if you want," he rambled on, oblivious to her worry. "New, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, n- Doctor. But I'm not nine hundred any more."

"No?"

"Guess how old I am, Rose!"

"Um...nine hundred and four?"

"Nope!" He wriggled and squeezed his hands between his thighs. "I'm one day old! Because this is also my first body!" He winced suddenly. "And, Rose?" He sat very still. "I think I had a bit of an accident."

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"Dammit," Rose swore, and went to the supermarket to buy adult nappies and cleaning supplies. By the time she got back and rang Jake, the walls had closed and the dimension cannon was no longer working.

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"Poos!"

"Wees!"

"Kissing!"

The Doctor leaned forward and whispered loudly, "_Knickers_!"

Rose dropped her backpack on the ground. "Hey, Doctor. We found some weird alien artifacts at the site near Swansea. One of them looks like that heart monitor on Sven Five. Want to have a look at them?"

"No, I'm busy here," he replied dismissively. "Bottoms!"

Tony shrieked and clapped his hands.

A week. It had been one week, and already she was close to breaking. Far from romance and running for their lives on a slightly smaller scale, she was looking after a fully grown man who had reverted to toddlerhood. He couldn't sleep without his teddy bear, had to be dressed most mornings, and was obsessed with Spongebob Squarepants (who was red in this universe). Oddly enough, though, he had retained all his gross motor skills. Tony could never catch him in a game of tag. She'd tried to get the Doctor to explain, but he just babbled a lot of sciencey-sounding words to her and then went back to banging the frying pan with the bread knife.

If Donna had absorbed his brain, then maybe the same thing had happened to her. Rose imagined Donna running amok in the control room, grabbing at whatever she could reach and blowing up the Tardis. It would serve him right.

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"You have to get over him, sweetheart," Jackie said. "You won't see the Doctor again, an' this one's a child, in his mind, at least."

"Yeah, don't want to get done for paedophilia," Rose mumbled with her head in the fridge.

"There's no need for sarcasm, young lady," Jackie warned her. "You're not too old for a smack, you know."

"Mum! I'm twenty-four!"

'Then you need to move out. It was all right when we thought it was only temporary, but you're staying for good now."

"And the Doctor?" She found the baby food she was looking for and put it on the counter. "I can't just dump him on you. He's my responsibility."

"I've thought about that. We'll say he's brain-damaged, from the Cyberman incident. That all right?"

Rose nodded.

"He can live here if you hire us a caregiver, and spend Sundays with him. You're right, he's not my problem, but I don't mind helping some. He's good company for Tony, anyway."

"Oh, Mum. What would I do without you?" Rose tried to smile.

"Don't cry now, sweetheart. Now, you're to go out with some friends this week. Mum's orders. I can still boss you around 'til you leave, you know."

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Rose found it easier to move on when she wasn't living with a constant reminder of what she'd lost. She began to make friends in the Extra-Terrestrial Diplomacy (Humanoid) Department, and started eating lunch in the Torchwood canteen, instead of spending her breaks poring over Void reports. Three weeks after her return to what she was beginning to call her home universe, she ordered the Dimension Cannon dismantled and the information destroyed. She allowed herself one night of grieving, then turned her face resolutely towards the future. And if she felt a pang at the thought of a shared future, hand in hand, she never showed it.


	3. Chapter 3

_Slap!_

"Ya' bastard! Keep your hands to yourself!"

The short blond man clambered to his feet and pulled himself up to his not-so-impressive height. Rose had just time to notice that he looked like one of her Hendrik's co-workers when he lunged at the woman, shoving her into the next table.

"Hey! Leave the lady alone!" objected one of the occupants, brushing glass off his suit, which was now stained with wine.

"She ain't no lady," sneered the first man.

"Oh yeah? Like to say that again?" He grabbed the offender by the collar and dragged him backwards. The blond squirmed, elbowed him in the gut, and they overbalanced, crashing to the ground.

"Eddie, no!" someone yelled.

The two men struggled together on the floor, each grappling for an advantage. They rolled over, the taller on top, and a chair fell on him. Taking advantage of his distraction, the other man worked his hands around his neck and squeezed.

The exit was blocked by the crowd. What was it that made men crowd like seagulls around a fight, desperate for scraps of excitement? Rose winced as Eddie kicked desperately, trying to prise the fingers off his throat. His eyes bulged alarmingly. Her hands groped behind her for the fire alarm switch. With a scraping sound, the sprinklers switched on and jets of freezing water shot out of the ceiling. The two men broke apart at once.

A security guard waded through the growing puddles and grabbed the brawlers. "Out. Now. Bar policy," he snapped. "And if there's damage, you're paying." He shoved them towards the door, and turned to the slapping woman. "You too."

"He was feelin' me up! And I wasn't fighting!"

"Bar policy. Anyone involved leaves."

"I'll 'ave my lawyers on you!" she roared, and stomped her way to the door, causing as much commotion as she could.

"Think I'll head on home," said Mairi. "I don't fancy sitting around in a flooded pub. You all right getting home, Rose?"

"I've got my car. Want a lift?"

"Don't worry, I'll call a taxi."

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The redhead was sitting on a ledge near Rose's car. Rose headed for her, grateful for the fresh air that stung her throat. She skirted a puddle of vomit with a shudder. She needed a shower. Nights out at the pub always left her feeling grimy.

Rose reached her car and hesitated, hand on the bonnet. There was something familiar about her, something nagging at the back of her memories. Maybe it was her voice, or her hair, or the angry and defeated way she held herself. "Gingerbread houses," her second Doctor had said once, but this was her world, now. She had every right to interfere.

She pasted a grin on her face, tongue between her teeth. "You all right there? Hope you dumped the bastard."

The bar had been smoky and dimly lit; outside, the floodlights threw harsh light over the carpark, bringing the woman's features into sharp relief. Rose swallowed her gasp, making a peculiar choking noise. It was Donna Noble.

"'Course I dumped him. Think I'm stupid?" Donna snorted. "What's your name, then?"

"Rose — Tyler." She fought to keep her voice steady. This was something she'd never expected. "And — you're Donna, right?"

"Catherine."

"Right." Different universe, Mickey and Rickey. She fidgeted nervously.

"That your car?"

"Um — yeah."

"Bugger left me without a ride. It'll be hell walking home in these heels."

The wind picked up, shaking the peeling posters and stirring up leaves from underneath. Rose remembered practising walking in heels with Shireen, a lifetime ago. It seemed so unimportant now. She wore shoes for comfort, not for style.

"Oh — you wanted a ride?"

"That'd be great — thanks!"

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Rose manoeuvred the car onto the street, unsure of what to say. What did you say to a parallel version of a woman you'd saved the world with, twice? Not to mention, convinced an amnesiac version of her that she had to travel back in time to kill herself. How many Donnas were there running around, anyway? She turned around to check Catherine's back for Time Beetles.

"Is there something on my back?" Catherine twisted herself to check. "If he got wine on my good top, I'm sending him the cleaning bill."

"Just the light," Rose laughed.

"I should never have gone out with him. Lisa warned me off weeks ago." Rambling appeared to be a multi-versal Donna trait. "He's been hanging around me at work for ages. Kept bringing me coffee. I _hate_ coffee."

"I'm more of a tea fan myself, " Rose agreed.

"Oh, I hate tea as well. Give me a hot chocolate any day. Anyway, he was the first to ask me out in half a year. All my friends are settling down and getting married, y'see. Think I'm getting desperate...You got kids, Rose?"

"Just the one. He's not exactly mine, though."

"Adopted?"

"Yeah, that's right...Sometimes I regret it, though, 'cause he's a right handful at times!"

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She was sitting against the kitchen counter with Tony in her lap, arguing with the Doctor, who was building a tower of blocks in the doorway and humming along to "The Little Mermaid".

"No, Doctor, I am not buying you jelly shoes," Rose said firmly. "They're for little girls, and they won't have any big enough."

"Pleeease," begged the Doctor, tilting his head to one side and looking mournful. "Please, Rose, I'll do anything!"

She reached out and ruffled his hair affectionately. "We wouldn't want people to think you're a girl, now, would we."

Tony giggled. The Doctor scowled and patted his hair down firmly.

"Well, Rose, I'm actually part Donna. _So_ I'm part girl. _So_ I can wear jelly shoes _some_ of the time."

"Why do you have to be so damn logical," muttered Rose. "All right, if we find any — " She sniffed. "Is something burning?"

"It's my toast," he replied calmly. "Rose, look! It's the Glass Pyramid of San Kloon! Remember that, Rose?"

"Yeah, I remember," she murmured. "Doctor, go get your toast."

"In a minute. I have to wait for the song to finish."

"Y'know, Doctor, if you're gonna make a musical toaster, you should really program it for shorter songs. Or you'll set the smoke alarm off again."

"Hey! Don't knock the toaster!" objected the Doctor. "Do you know how long it took me to get that working? And without my sonic screwdriver!" He pouted. "I tried the microwave first, 'cause you can cook things for longer in there. But it didn't work."

"It blew up," Tony added helpfully.

The smoke alarm screeched.

"Doctor, take out the damn toast!" Rose hollered.

"Okay okay okay! I'm going!" He moved slowly towards the bench. He grinned over his shoulder at her. "I set the toast on fire three times," he said proudly, as if it were some sort of accomplishment.

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"Here we go," Rose said, stopping outside a familiar brick house. "You want to meet up for drinks sometime?"

"Yeah, maybe not that pub though!" Catherine opened the door. "Hang on a mo' — how'd you know where I live?"

_Crap._ "You told me when you got in."

"No I didn't." Catherine looked at her suspiciously. "You some kind of online stalker?"

"Think you might've had a few too many," Rose laughed, white-knuckled hands still on the wheel.

"I did not, thank you very much! Where d'you work, then? Are you the police? About those speeding tickets?"

"Donna — Catherine — I'm —"

"My granddad had a _heart attack_ . Bloody cops, don't give a damn about anyone else —"

"Catherine, I'm not the police!"

"Oh yeah? Where do you work for, then?"

"Torchwood." _Wait, why did I say that?_

"Torchwood?! Oh, great, that's even worse. What, have you bugged the phone, too? Reading our mail? Have you wiped my memories before? There's no Cybermen in our cellar!" Catherine bellowed. "You just don't know when to stop, do you!"

"Catherine, please calm down."

"No, ta. _This_ is what I'm doing. I'm getting my Grandad and my Mum and my brother out of here. Out of the country. 'Cos when Torchwood's interested in you, you never stay safe. I'm not getting mixed up in any bloody alien invasion."

She slammed the door behind her and stormed up the drive.

Rose rested her head on the steering wheel, bumping the horn. She exhaled sharply and reached for the door handle. Time for damage control.

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Rose stretched luxuriously across her bed, recalling the events of the evening. The door had opened to an irate Sylvia Noble, demanding to know what was going on. She'd managed to manoeuvre Rose into the kitchen, still complaining about privacy acts and getting rides with strangers. Unsuitable men, and how she was expected to drop her job just like that, she didn't know!

Through her tirade, a quiet but confident voice asked, "What's she done now, then? Let me sort it out."

Bright blue eyes in an intelligent face. She remembered those eyes from a lifetime ago, looking at her over a makeshift weapon, defiant and courageous even after it was proved useless. Braver than the Doctor, for all his posturing and technology.

She didn't mind his imperfect features, and his physical impairments didn't bother her. When had she cared about looks, anyway? Her Doctors had taught her that much.

For all her juvenile ideas about soul mates and destiny, this was it. This was real love, right here, right now, and she knew it.

She slipped his name between her lips, remembering his smile, just for her.

"Wilfred."


End file.
